Where Does the Good Go?
by Andi Mack
Summary: Sequel and final chapter of the "Sorry, Angel" story. Tempers and emotions flare greatly as Mei Ling, Snake, and Sunny all find their different ways to deal with Hal's death. !COMPLETE!
1. Chapter 1

PROLOGUE

I never wanted her to see a funeral. I tried so hard to protect her from the sadness and the ugliness in this world and in the end, it was me who brought it to the door step of her life. I used to wrap my arms around her in a hug when I tucked her into bed and pretend that I was was a shield that could reflect pain and loneliness and abandonment—all the things that I learned to fight at one time or another in my own life. I can't blame her for the way she looked at me. It was a gaze fueled by hate, transformed from intense love...and rage that had been morphed and corrupted from affection. Her eyes poured onto hot cheeks, red and heated with emotions and thoughts so much heavier than her little body should ever have to carry.

After all the layers of protection and awareness I tried to armor her with, it was my spear of selfishness and hopelessness that pieced and destroyed her heart. The very same heart that she had given directly to me so many times with such pure entrustment when I couldn't remember what my own felt like to beat in happiness. She peered down at me through eyes that didn't remember what I must have been like during better times anymore. The blue rose in her hand had been put there by someone else—someone else who thought the feeling required to give it to me still existed in her heart. It didn't and as she laid it down, it immediately synced and blended with the other rehearsed items of sympathy. She looked at me a moment longer but it was a look given to a complete stranger who bared a peculiar resemblance to someone in her past, someone she kind of remembered caring about one time. Someone who hadn't broken every promise they had ever made to her and left...

* * *

Sunny had felt dozens of hands on her, each carrying their own silent condolences for her. Roy Campbell's had been two quick pats on the shoulder accompanied by a mumbling of words in the tone of something apologetic. Meryl's had been soft and delivered with a small smile that had bravely chosen to come out from underneath the tears. Rose's hand had lingered on her back but only with as much genuine empathy as someone could give to a little girl who almost registered as a complete stranger. When Sunny took her seat on the pew again, Mei Ling's hands had come down over her shoulders and squeezed her as if attempting to beckon a dammed river. Sunny wouldn't cry for Hal. She couldn't and she seemed to be the only one with that stubbornness in mind. Mei Ling placed her head on the little girl's letting the sounds of her sobs travel over her skull and into her ears but failing to set the example for a similar reaction in her. She shifted a look to Snake who was grieving alone in a remote part of the church, away from the audible weeping coming from the other bodies. His head was down to the floor with his face actively showing his body's entrapment between the urge to cry and the urge to explode into anger and destroy everything in his path. Sunny thought she caught him inching closer to the destructive side and attempted to follow her notion to go over to him but was reminded by another tumble of distraught sobs from Mei Ling that she was currently her support beam.

A few people got up and spoke about Hal, many using the same adjectives as the person before them, just with different places and experiences behind them. They all ended their reminiscing by looking at his coffin to let their memories of and with him be associated with his face one last time before they disappeared into the church pews again. A few of them looked at Sunny out of concern and then quickly in confusion when they didn't see any signs of sorrow or predicted hysterics coming from her. She was, after all, Hal's heart...and he was thought to have been hers too.

By the time Sunny, Mei Ling, and Snake were en route out of town and back home, it was a black and crisp night. The only light that lead them was that from the moon and it made everything it dropped onto a pale gray but with the radiance of Christmas tinsel. Mei Ling was drained from the day's events but knew that even at her worst that she was in better condition than Snake to drive. He had chosen to sit in the back seat of the car which in turn lead Sunny to do the same. They rode for miles in a complete silent reflection of everything that had happened in the past two weeks and created their own outlooks on what the future would possibly be like without him.

Rescuing Hal from terrorists had turned out to be the easy part. It was was rescuing him from himself that had been the mission they all felt they had ultimately failed. He hadn't been the same upon his return and everyone had known it and, in some fashion or another, had ignored it. His depression was supposed to go away over time and the bright, vibrant Hal he had once been was supposed to come back to them. His ability to find his way back to his normal self after one of life's storms was as reliably mapped and traced as a blueprint. His certain fragility balanced with his uncanny resilience in a way that created and tried and true pattern for his behavior with everything. But before anyone realized what has happening—that Hal had lost his plans and path—he was too far off track for anyone to pull back again.

Sunny had been the last person he had seen. The last person he had wanted to see. He had cupped her leaking porcelain face in his hands and kissed her goodbye before she could even fully realize that he had plans of leaving. If she would have known, she would have reminded him of his promise to her and what breaking it would mean.

"Sunny...sweetie," Mei Ling called from behind the wheel to shake the hypnotism of watching the constant flow of white lines disappear under the car, "you were really brave today. I just wanted you to know how proud I am of you." She caught Sunny's image in the rear view mirror. "The next few months aren't going to be easy but, I think as long as we all stick together, we'll make it through."

Her comment went without much acknowledgment from Sunny. Instead, she summoned Snake's attention from the window by placing her hand on his shoulder. In the broken moonbeams coming in, she clearly made out glimpses of Snake's tired and broken sapphire blinks at her.

"Snake, you haven't said anything all day."

"Give Snake some time." Mei Ling informed her, giving Snake a glance of great sympathy herself. "He's dealing with everything in his own way right now."

He looked to Sunny almost as if it was her job to say something to make the pain go away. She accepted the challenge but the words she had collected got lost after she took the preparation breath to start. His sadness bowled her over the way that maybe her own should have or would have if she had allowed herself to feel any. After a few moments in the silence, Snake turned his head back to the view of the night carelessly blurring by him.

As soon as Sunny opened the door to her room, the framed photo of her and Hal sitting on her dresser caught her attention. She had looked at and studied the picture so much that she could recall every little detail of it even without looking at it. It had been taken a few months before Hal had been ripped away from her, when she had believed everything he told her and before she ever had a reason not to. The way they held onto each other, the silliness that had escaped them in manic laughter before the shutter closed—it all felt created from a spot in her imagination now. She opened the top drawer, placed the frame faced own between a stack of folder shirts, and closed it back with a firmness that she secretly wished would lock it in there forever.

"Goodbye, Hal."


	2. Chapter 2

Each petal splashed off the on pouring liquid in an erect satisfactory that gave Sunny a slight tingle of unwholesome joy. They were stupid and blind to their own undoing, just as she had been. For all they knew, it was water they were so anxiously soaking up and accepting into their roots. When the jug in her hand was empty, she tossed it aside and picked up a second one and spreaded another coat of the contents over everything in the garden that emitted color and beauty or had ever given her any faux feeling of happiness. They were placebo treatments for happiness that she had indulged herself into before she knew any better. She didn't know what the actual ingredients for happiness were anymore or if they even actually existed...but she knew that nothing that she could drench in vinegar to kill was it.

As she reached down to grab the third container, she felt it suddenly rip from under her hand.

"What in the hell are you doing, Sunny?" Mei Ling clung the last jug into her chest as if it were a baby being prepared to be thrown off a cliff.

"I don't want them anymore."

"But...you and Hal planted these flowers together. Half of him is in this garden."

"Their all ugly and I don't want them."

Mei Ling observed the damage the little girl had already done and picked up the two empty jugs from off the ground. "You don't want to do this, Sunny. You're just upset. Maybe we can dilute the vinegar enough with water so that nothing will—"

"I hope they all die." She delivered directly to the garden before turning and walking away from it.

Snake only looked up when he heard Mei Ling throw all the jugs in her hands down to the kitchen floor. The empty ones bounced in opposite directions while the rescued one pummeled into the tile and rolled away from her into a cabinet.

She brought her hand to her forehead. "I don't know what to do with her, Snake. She's beyond hurt at this point. I just caught her trying to kill the flowers in her garden with vinegar." She turned to face Snake. "You...you have to talk to her. She listens to you." Snake directed his stare back to the view of the floor as Mei Ling made her way over to him. "I really need you to pull yourself out of this rut and talk to her. It's like she's trying to erase Hal from her life completely. She barely even acknowledges him by name anymore."

"I...I can't."

"What? No, Snake...listen to me. She _needs_ you. She feels lost and completely abandoned by Hal. You need to show her that she still has you."

"She doesn't need me. She needs Hal. There's nothing I can do, Mei Ling. "

"But Hal isn't here..." His tone reminded her of a doctor giving up the fight to save a patient because he couldn't find his stethoscope. The comparison in her mind made her push Snake sharply in his chest. "Don't you do this to me, Snake. Don't you _dare_ do this to me!" He stumbled back as she continued to shove and strike him wildly, the next blow a little harder than the last though none of them effective enough to really hurt. The last one landed square on his shoulder and released the tears that had been building in the previous hits. "I don't care how you treat me, but you're all she's got now, Snake...and you're pushing her away!"

"I'm not pushing her away, Mei Ling, but I don't even know where I am right now! How in the hell can I guide her back?"

"I'm not asking you guide her back...I'm asking you to show her she's not wandering alone."

Snake pushed this palms on either of his temples and closed his eyes. "I can't do this. I'll just drag her further down."

"So that's it?" Mei Ling spat in disgust. "You're not even going to try?"

"What do you want me say to her?"

"It doesn't matter! Say anything to her...but don't walk around here like you're the only one that's upset Hal is dead! Oh, God..." She placed her hands over her face and shook her head. The stark addressing of Hal's death hit her like meteor and for a moment and she couldn't stand up straight from the impact.

"Mei Ling..."

"You push everyone who cares about you away. One day, you're going to look around and there's not going to be anyone left to push. Is that what you want, Snake? It's what happened with Meryl, isn't it? You put up wall after wall between you until she got tired of trying to break them all down."

Snake felt the meteor that had hit Mei Ling earlier boomerang and strike his own heart, mortally wounding it in the process. He turned away from her in search of a place to disintegrate under the barrage of it all.

"Mei Ling!" Sunny emerged from her spot in the hallway where she had been lingering in for the past several moments. It had been Snake's rare look of a painful and somber existence that had served as her warning sign. "Why are you saying that to him?"

"That's it, Snake," she continued as if she didn't feel the little girl tugging on her arm in great protest to the words leaving her mouth, "just turn your back on everything you don't want to deal with. Or send it away, right?"

Mei Ling's eyes widened in great shock of her own statements. She felt as if she had suddenly zapped into her own body again with all the knowledge of what the thing that had invaded her had said before. "Snake, I--"

"Go on and say it, Mei Ling," Snake calmly fixed his eyes on her, "You think Hal would have been alive today if I wouldn't have pushed him away."

Sunny stepped in front of her and commanded an answer with her gaze when she stayed silent.

"I didn't mean--"

"I think you should go now, Mei Ling." Sunny put her body firmly between the two of them when she attempted to move closer to him. She heeded the silent warning the little girl gave with her eyes and retreated out of the room.

Sunny turned back to see Snake's back slide down the wall to the floor.

"She's right." He said.

"No," Sunny folded her legs underneath her and sat on her calves next to him. "It's not your fault, Snake."

"He heard me when I was talking to Mei Ling. He knew I was going to send him away. I gave up on him and he knew it."

"Hal left because he wanted to. No one made him. Especially not you."

"It should have been me."

"What are you talking about?"

"It should have been me in that casket a few days ago. Not Hal."

Sunny pulled the mercenary into her arms and brought a calm over him that evaporated his urge to resist her. As she held onto him, he kept his arms to his sides feeling undeserving of the little girl's efforts to comfort him.

"Don't say stuff like that." She told him quietly, as if it could release something evil into the world.

Snake, for the first time in his life, felt like tempered glass waiting for the right condition to initiate his shattering. Sunny moved her hands up and down his back in a subconscious, even rhythm, letting his breathing be her beat to go by.

"I let him die," he confessed, his voice clearly representing the parts of himself crumbling in the strange sense of security of the little girl's grasp. "He trusted me to save him and I couldn't do it. _He_ should be here with you. I'm worthless, Sunny."

The amount of guilt Snake carried started to weigh down on Sunny heavily but, from somewhere, she conjured up the strength to extinguish the burn in her eyes and keep it together, if only for the soldier she was holding on so tightly to now.

"Snake, please don't do this to yourself. You _did _save Hal, remember? You brought him back home. But...Hal didn't want to be here with us anymore and he left. I wish more anything that he wouldn't have but, he did...and that's not your fault. None of this is your fault."

Snake clutched the little girl to him, buried his face in her shoulder, and prepared for the pieces of his being to spill warmly and rigidly onto her. The sharp jolts of his body in her grip alarmed her momentarily until she realized it wasn't coming from the beginnings of a coughing spell.

"Snake?" She lifted his face up in her hands to look at him and ran her thumb over the dampened area of his cheeks. "Are you...crying?" She had toned down the surprise she had said it within her head and replaced it with the pity that ached for him in her chest.

"I'm sorry."

"No, no, no," she said quickly, realizing he associated the action with weakness within himself, "Don't say 'sorry'. It's okay. It's not a crime."

He blinked at her in curiosity. "I always thought..."

"What is it?" She urged softly.

"I always thought...you hated me."

"I've never hated you. Why would you think that?"

He shook his head, his amount of unusual honesty with her finally registering. "Forget it. Forget I said anything."

Sunny pinpointed the exact second Snake's vulnerability snapped shut and the barrier went back in place over it. He shook all contact she had on him and rose to his feet.

"Snake...are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"Did I say something wrong?" She asked, willing to fix whatever it was immediately.

"No, you didn't do anything wrong." Snake took her shoulders in his hands using the gentlest grasp he could being that he was a trained killer handling an angel, "You're too young to play patron saint to me. That shouldn't be your job."

"What's a patron saint?"

"Don't worry about it, Sunny. Why don't you go and see if Mei Ling is okay?"

"But she said all that mean stuff to you..."

"She was just upset. She didn't mean it."

She nodded and left Snake to himself. The pieces of himself slowly started to recollect in the silence and he closed his eyes to feel them all as they did. It had been a long time since he had lost any part of himself like that and couldn't even begin to trace his way back to the origin of his sudden breaking. He took a deep breath as he wiped the tears from his eyes and chin in the same manner he had cleaned blood off his face in the past on the battlefield. When it all boiled down, there was little difference between the two to him—they were both things that hadn't come from any place good in his life.


	3. My Other Voice

_Hal was getting tired of sitting in the silence of the dining room by himself. Every once in a while, when his brain forgot to tune it out, he could pick up the sound of the refrigerator's compressor kicking on but even it felt too meshed into the ultraviolet sounds of the house during early morning hours to feel like noise. The other two active bodies in the house were still asleep. One he hoped was happily locked away in sweet dreams and the other he knew was fighting his way through the nightmares of his past._

_But Hal, he wasn't dreaming of anything. _

_His eyes wouldn't close no matter how hard the weights of the long day behind him day yanked on them and his whole body dully ached all over for lack of a better response to everything it had waged through and participated in in the past few weeks. He was sure the coffee didn't help matters, but it was the only thing that created the pseudo situation his mind needed to feel like everything was okay or at least would be. _

_But now, he longed for another voice and realized this as he made his way to his desktop computer in the room over. A phone number danced in his head while he subtracted three hours from the clock in the corner of the monitor. She'd be angry but needed her and to hear her voice. His sanity depended on it._

_After three buzzes, the screen lit up with Mei Ling's face exactly the way he had expected to see it: greatly puckered in grogginess and preestablished annoyance._

_"Hal, doll," she said in a tone that had given up on sounding nice upon looking at the clock, "it's three in the morning where I am. How many times do I have to tell you there's a three hour difference between us?"_

_"I totally forgot. I'm so sorry, Mei Ling. You can call me back later if you want."_

_"Well, I'm up now, Hal. What could possibly be the matter at this hour?"_

_"Uh, well, I was finishing up the coding on that program I was working on and I realized that you hadn't sent me that line of code of you said you would and I can't complete it without it."_

_Hal could tell she was trying to process everything he had just said and was deciding which line of obscenities to use in her response to it. Suddenly, her face softened but her eyes cut hard into him._

_"You're lying, Hal. What's __really__ wrong?"_

_"I told you, I'm finishing up the program..."_

_"You and I both know that not even you are working on any kind of program at--" she glanced at the clock a moment, "six in the morning. There's just no need for you to be that kind of a workaholic anymore, Hal. Now, there's a reason you called me whether you're aware of what it is or not."_

_She was right. He took off his glasses and held the bridge of his nose between his index and thumb. He couldn't make the words come out. He squeezed his eyes shut and even forged out an exaggerated sigh to try and kick start the emptying of his heavy conscious to her but it got caught on something that wouldn't let it go._

_"Hal. Is Snake okay?"_

_He managed to shake his head. "No." _

_"What's going on?" Her voice was prickled in deep concern now. Concern for Snake. Concern for him. _

_"It's all happening. Just the way Naomi said it would."_

_"You mean he's getting sicker..."_

_"The coughing spells are harder and lasting longer. They get so brutal that it takes him ten minutes just to get his breath back again. When he does eat, it's less than what Sunny does and when he actually sleeps, he's plague by these nightmares that I can't even wake him up from sometimes. And when I look at him...I can't even see a soul behind his eyes anymore, Mei Ling. I know he's miserable but it's like he's just given up."_

_"Maybe you should call Rose, Hal. Have her come and talk to him."_

_He made a face and shook his head at the thought. "No. I don't want Rose here. She doesn't know Snake like we all do. To be honest with you, I don't think he even likes her very much. I wish you were here right now, Mei Ling."_

_"I know and if I could you know I would but I just can't leave right now; I have too many commitments here in LA. I'm sorry, Hal."_

_"I understand." Mei Ling became aware of the unintentional coldness of her words when she saw Hal's feeble attempt to smile to not make her feel bad about saying them. "You've been an amazing friend even from where you are. I'm just happy you don't hang up on me whenever I call you this late."_

_"Oh, Hal. I could never hang up on you."_

_Hal's attention went off screen for a moment and soon, he had a small girl, still in pajamas, occupying his lap. Mei Ling waved at her and she returned it with an enthusiasm that made Mei Ling feel she was right across the room from her. _

_"You're up early, angel." Hal said, "Anything wrong?"_

_"We have to go into town and get groceries this morning, remember?"_

_"Oh yeah. Thanks for reminding me. It's a good thing you're keeping up with everything because I'm sure we'd all starve if it were left up to me. Well, I'm just happy it wasn't the monsters in your closet or under your bed that woke you up."_

_Sunny gave a laugh that Hal knew could rise and set every sun for the rest of his life."There's no such thing as monsters, Uncle Hal!"_

_"What? Are you __**sure**__ there's no such thing as monsters?"_

_"I'm positive."_

_"Hmm...I don't think I believe you, angel."_

_"Uncle Hal..."_

_"Nope." he turned his head away from her, pretending to not want to hear anything she had to say. "You can't fool me."_

_Sunny turned to Mei Ling on the monitor in front of her. "Tell Uncle Hal there's no such thing as monsters, Mei Ling."_

_"Hal, there's no such thing as monsters. We know what we're talking about. You should listen to us."_

_"Great! Now Mei Ling is lying to me too? Look you've done, Sunny!" He laughed a series of kisses on her face and tightened his arms around her midsection in a hug. "I love you, angel."_

_"Well, I don't think I believe __**you**__, Uncle Hal!"_

_He moved a few pieces of hair back from her face when she looked back at him. "I mean that. I love you more than anything, Sunny. I don't know what I'd do without you right now."_

_"I know, Uncle Hal. I was just joking around. I didn't mean to make you sad."_

_"You didn't make me sad. I guess I've just forgotten how to take a joke. I'm sorry."_

_"Have you been to sleep yet?"_

_"Not really. Can you tell?"_

_She nodded. "You should go to sleep, Uncle Hal. Your eyelids look all droopy."_

_"I have to make sure Snake eats something this morning. I'll take a nap before we leave for the store."_

_"No you won't. You say that but then you'll find something else to do and you'll never get to sleep."_

_Mei Ling laughed a bit. "Sunny sounds like she's got your M.O. down pat, Hal."_

_"Go to bed, Uncle Hal," Sunny urged, "I'll make sure Snake eats something."_

_"Snake can get a little angry sometimes. I don't want him to scare you or anything."_

_"He doesn't scare me. He's just a big baby who yells when he can't have his way. I'm old enough to do this. I'm going to fix him some breakfast!"_

_Before Hal could offer an opinion on her sudden decision, the little girl was out of his lap and running to the kitchen. He looked back at the screen to Mei Ling._

_"You must think I'm awful, letting a 7-year-old girl take care of a dying man." _

_"No," she replied, "I think you and the dying man are both very lucky."_


	4. Chapter 4

Mei Ling knew she wasn't the only pair of lungs breathing in the air of the living room. She hadn't looked in the dimly lit area where the sofa was but she knew that was where the second set of respirations were coming from. She placed a hand on her packed suitcase and reached for the knob of the front door. Her plan to slip out and back to Los Angeles unnoticed was ruined by the extra body in the room but she undid all the locks on the door as carefully and quietly as she would dismantle a bomb.

"I haven't had a drink in almost 10 years. I haven't even thought about it." Mei Ling continued as if she didn't hear anything until the voice's inflection aimed directly at her. "How about a drink before you leave?"

"I should just go now, Snake..."

"Just one. No strings. If you want to leave, I won't stop you. I just hope you told Sunny goodbye."

Sometimes Mei Ling imagined what Snake would have been like had he not joined FOXHOUND and lived through all the events that made him the way he was. She easily saw him as someone with an irresistible charm and sharp, snappy one-liners for anything thrown at him all enveloped by a big heart that would protect anyone lucky enough to live in it. All the characteristics were versions of things she saw glimpses of in him now but realized to be tainted by the blood, betrayal, and war in his life.

She accepted the wine glass into her grip and watched him pour what she considered too much wine into it.

"I didn't." She finally said.

"What?"

"I didn't tell Sunny goodbye. She hates me."

"She doesn't hate you. Like you said, she's upset with Hal but, Hal's not here so she has to take it out on somebody." Snake caught her eyes as she brought down the glass from a long sip. "Is that why you're leaving?"

"She doesn't want me here, Snake. You shouldn't either. Not after what I said to you."

Snake shook his head in a light laugh. "If only Hal knew what he had done. He'd think we were _all_ nuts."

"I'm really sorry about what I said a few days ago, Snake. I don't blame you for Hal's death. I'm not even sure I fully blame Hal. He was just a victim of his experiences, after all."

"It's alright, Mei Ling. You were upset."

"It's going to be so hard adjusting to life without him. I can't believe I'm going to say this but...I'm even going to miss Hal forgetting about the time difference between New York and Los Angeles and calling me at 3am." A small rumble of laughter broke between them. "I could count on him to do that at least a few times a year. I never got angry or anything. I couldn't ever find it in myself to do that. It was something he only did when he was really excited or bothered about something. What about you, Snake? How are you holding up?"

"I think I had fooled myself into thinking I was okay until a few days ago. I wasn't prepared for this, Mei Ling."

"I know."

He glanced up at her and then back to the glass in his hand. "You don't have to leave if you don't want to, you know."

"A drink without strings, huh? Is that your way of asking me to stay?"

"Let's just say it's a lot nicer having you around than it is not having you around."

"I'll take that...coming from you." She reached across his lap and grabbed the wine bottle he had leaning against a pillow. "I thought I recognized this taste. Meryl and Johnny had this at their wedding. How in the world did you get it? You weren't even there."

"A present from Drebin. Apparently, he thought he had too much of the stuff, shoved about five bottles on Hal at the reception. Hal didn't drink often enough to want to take them but I don't think he knew how to tell Drebin 'no thanks' either. So, they've been sitting in the kitchen cabinets since. I'm sure he had plans of cracking one open once Sunny turned 21 or something." Snake sat the glass down on the table in front of him and ran his hands over his face. "Damnit, Hal. You were supposed to be around for that."

Mei Ling placed her hand on his back and moved a small, warm circle in the center. "You and Sunny are going to be okay."

"No, we're not." He looked up at her, "I'm going to be dead in a few months and now I have no idea what's going to happen to her."

"I'll take her when that time comes, Snake. Don't worry."

"Really?"

The idea finally set in and she nodded. "Yeah. I mean, I know nothing about kids but, I imagine Hal didn't either and he was wonderful with her. We'll both teach each other something."

"Thanks, Mei Ling."

"For the record though, current circumstances aside, I think you would have been great with her."

He shook his head. "Nah. I was never really good with people and neither was Hal. We were more alike than I think either one of us ever wanted to admit, too alike to help each other overcome what life had made us. He'd talk for hours about these anime characters like they were his friends or something and almost live his own life through theirs. I didn't understand it but, who was I to tell him how to deal with being alone? I think he knew they weren't real but felt it was safe for him to cling to something that could never abandon him or let him down like people had.

"When Raiden brought Sunny to us, for a while, he didn't know what to do with her—neither one of us did. She was this living, breathing thing that depended on us for everything and for months, I think we looked at her like she had tentacles growing out of her or something. But after a while, Hal grew this bond with her that became stronger than any relationship with an anime character he'd ever had. He reshaped his world and everything in it to revolve around Sunny and he loved every moment of it. Everytime she'd call him or need him—it didn't matter what he was doing—he'd drop it and focus on her. I think Hal became the person he always wanted to be through Sunny and lived his life for the person he always wanted to." Snake's face darkened. "I knew the day he left that I wasn't ever going to see him again. Hal Emmerich died the moment he got into that taxi...and I stood back and watched it happen."

"Snake..."

"I know I can't feel sorry for myself for what happened but I just keep thinking about everything I could have and should have done to stop him from ever leaving that day."

"Everything's 20/20 in hindsight, Snake. All the 'woulda, coulda, shoulda's always come out a half a second later than what we needed them to. The truth is, there's very little any of us could have done that day. Even Sunny, in her own way, tried to stop him...and she couldn't." She turned Snake's face to her and locked his eyes in hers. "It was fate. It was the way someone much more powerful than you or I or Sunny wanted it to be...and that's the way that it is."

She brushed her hand down Snake's imperfect and scared face and let the magnetism it created pull them closer. For a few seconds, she couldn't remember how to untangle herself from his kiss but finally did in a sudden, quick, jerk backwards.

"Whoa. What are we doing?"

"I, I don't know."

"This isn't right." She placed her forehead to his. "These feelings are being born of grief and nothing else, Snake. You and I...we don't feel this way about each other. Right?"

"Right. I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me."

"I think this is the part where I say 'goodnight'." She pressed and held a small peck to his cheek. "Goodnight, Snake."

"Goodnight." Alone, Snake let the final slither of wine in the glass go down in the one gulp. "I wish I was as sure about what I felt as you are."

* * *

Mei Ling stood in the doorway of Sunny's room for the longest, watching her noisily throw things into a box on her bed. She knew they were all Hal related things. Things he had given her, made for her, or simply just reminded her of him. Every few chucks, something would jog the motion to a halt and require a sentimental stare of what she had picked up. But, almost as if she reminded herself of her anger towards him, she'd quickly toss it into the box in a manner that made it feel useless again. Mei Ling backed up a few feet and walked by the doorway. She peered in at her and tipped her head in practiced curiosity.

"What are you doing, Sunny?"

"Cleaning up." She tossed another item into the box and it crashed loudly into something that had likely shattered under the impact.

"Really?" She walked in and stole a glance of the inside of the box. "Some of this looks like Hal's stuff. What are you going to do with it?

"I'm throwing it away."

"Honey, why are you throwing away the memories that you have of your Uncle Hal?"

"He wasn't my uncle," She snapped, "and I'm throwing it away because I don't need it anymore."

Mei Ling grabbed the little girl's arms and extracted the item she had in her hands. "Sunny, don't do this. Do you know how much this would break Hal's heart if he saw you acting like this?"

"Well, he can't see me now, Mei Ling. He's dead!"

She frowned. "Sunny, Hal loved you more than anything. It doesn't matter if he was really your uncle or not, he would have moved Heaven and earth if he thought it would have made you happy. He would have done _anything_ for you--"

"Except stay here!" She cried, "Anything but stay here!"

"What Hal did was unfair and I know you're angry with him but please don't do this to your memories of him."

"I don't want any memories of him. I want to forget about him the way he forgot about me."

"I'll tell you what," Mei Ling said after a long stare into the little girl's eyes, "I'll let you do whatever you want with those things. They're yours and yours alone and I can't stop you. But just try to remember that Hal wasn't a bad person...he just made a really bad decision because he didn't see any other way out and that it didn't change the way he felt about you a single bit." Mei Ling looked into the box again and reached down into it to grab the picture frame her eye had caught from a past glance. When she brought it up, a few pieces of glass from the crack in it threaten to fall back into the box. "I really like this picture of you and Hal. This is the way I always want to remember you and Hal. Can I keep this? I'll replace the frame."

"Yeah."

"Thank you."

Hal's eyes glowed like embers of burning ice at her, even through the broken glass of the frame and when she touched it, it took the sting in her fingertips straight to her own eyes.

"Did you find out what Sunny was doing that was causing all the noise?"

"Yeah," she sighed heavily as she entered the living room, "She's throwing away everything she has that's associated with Hal. Taking a magnet to her hard drive, so to speak."

"What's that in your hand?"

"A salvaged item. It's a picture of her and Hal. When I saw it, I couldn't let her throw it away."

Snake extended his hand and she laid the picture in it. "I've seen this picture before. Hal has one just like it in his room. I think it was taken at The Savanna."

"The Savanna? What's that?"

At that moment, Snake's body commandeered the air he had reserved to answer the question with a hard coughing spell that greatly crippled the motion to breathe. Mei Ling placed her hand on his shoulder and took the time to look at Snake as she waited helplessly for the spell to pass. The deep, dark circles around his eyes, the thinning and paling of his face—the changes had been so gradual that she hadn't noticed them until she had seen them accompanied by that cough.

"Snake, you look terrible. Maybe you should go rest--"

"I'll be fine. The Savanna," he continued without letting a single, sympathetic beat for himself pass, "is this spot that Hal and Sunny went to. It's a few miles down the road, right before you get into town. I guess it was their 'special place' but essentially, it's nothing more than a wide, open area with a small lake."

"Did they go there a lot?"

"Yeah, they did. At least twice a week."

She sat down next to him and they both looked at the picture for a long moment.

"They both look so happy, Snake. And now, she hates him. I can't let her to make Hal a villain in her mind for the rest of her life."

"She'll get older and she'll understand everything better then."

"But what if she doesn't? What if she just forgets about him...tells herself he was a bad dream or something?"

"Then...," Snake sighed, "then, she'll be doing exactly what Hal wanted her to do."

She urged an explanation from him when she noticed his sudden look overtake his features, like he thought he had said too much. "Snake...what does that mean?"

"There was a letter. A suicide letter. A video, actually. He said in it that he couldn't recall anything good about himself that Sunny could remember and that he would prefer if she just forgot about him."

"No," Mei Ling shook her head as if she was trying to escape her own bad dream, "Hal would never say anything like that."

"He was so far away, Mei Ling...he wasn't himself anymore. He said a lot of things he wouldn't have normally said."

"Like what? Snake...please, let me see this video."

"I couldn't even if I wanted to. It played on his computer and he did something to his hard drive to completely delete it afterwards. He said he didn't ever want Sunny to find it."

"Why didn't you tell me about his sooner?"

"It's not anything I exactly wanted to remember, Mei Ling."

"Of course. I'm sorry." She looked down at the picture again. "How do you think Sunny would feel about going back to that place...without Hal?"

"I don't know."

She nodded. "Well, I guess that means we'll just have to find out."


	5. My Necessary Hazard

_"Uncle Hal, why do grown-ups drink coffee? I read online the other day that it could lead to kidney and heart disease."_

_Hal realized that the clink on the kitchen counter from his hand had been one of the three canisters of coffee that had traveled home in paper bags from the store with them._

_"Well, Sunny, by the time you turn eighteen and become a grown-up, you have little or no sympathy for your kidneys or heart anymore. It's a sad truth."_

_"Well, I'm not going to drink that stuff when I get older. I'm going to take care of my body."_

_"Really? Well, I think you should start right now and I'm going to help you by throwing this awful ice cream we just bought away." Hal lifted the carton out of the bag in front of him and dangled it over her head just out of reach. She jumped up a few times and chased Hal about the kitchen when he started to move around with it. The more laughter he got out of her, the more he soaked it in and let it come out of his own vocals as well._

_"No, Uncle Hal! Ice cream is good for you!"_

_"I don't think so, angel. There's all sorts of bad stuff in ice cream that you can't have once you're a grown-up." _

_Sunny caught him at a stop and climbed onto one of the stools sitting at the counter to snatch it triumphantly from his grip._

_"I don't need to stop eating ice cream yet, Uncle Hal. I'm not a grown-up yet."_

_"And you should be very happy. Being a grown-up isn't all it's cracked up to be. Speaking of grow-ups, why don't you go and tell Snake we're back from the store, okay?" _

_When Sunny returned a few moments later, Hal could sense something was wrong even though he could tell she couldn't._

_"Snake's not in his room, Uncle Hal."_

_"Not in his room, huh?" He hid his worry from her in his playful tone, "Well, he can't be too far, right?" _

_He took her hand, more for his benefit than hers, and gathered everything he could to follow where his heart was urging him to. _

_He ended up in front of the bathroom door but, he could immediately sense his friend on the other side. He rapped lightly on the wood and paused to put his ear to the door._

_"Go away, Hal!" Snake's growl was amplified by the echo in the bathroom. Hal jumped slightly. _

_"Snake, are you okay?"_

_"I'm fine. I'm doing you a favor."_

_"A favor? Snake, let me in. Unlock the door!"_

_"No. Let me do this by myself."_

_"Shit." _

_He turned to Sunny._

_"Angel, I need you to go to your room right now. Close the door and don't come out until I tell you to, okay?"_

_"Uncle Hal, what's Snake doing? What's going on?"_

_A layer of franticness rippled across Hal's composure. "Just do as I say right now, okay?" Sunny watched him fight with the unwillingness of the doorknob to turn and hit it in anger at the soul on the other side. "Snake, let me in, damnit!" He turned back to her without changing the tone or volume he had aimed at Snake. "Sunny, go to your room now!"_

_As soon as she had done as he asked, Hal raced into the kitchen and tore through the silverware drawer until his hands stopped shaking enough to pick up a butter knife. He jackhammered at the door's frame with it until he lost his grip on it. He fumbled around on the floor a few seconds until it was back in his hand. He felt like he was trying to thread a needle while traveling over an endless dirt road as he jabbed at the lock. _

_"Leave me alone, Hal!" Snake warned when he heard Hal's progress._

_He didn't say anything and when he finally pushed the door open to the view of his friend, he suddenly lost the ability to do so even if he wanted to. _

_"I couldn't even pull the damn trigger." Snake unhinged his jaw from around the barrel of the gun and looked at Hal from inside the bathtub. "I'm afraid you rushed in for nothing."_

_"Jesus Christ, Snake." Hal pulled the cover down on the commode and let his frame collapse onto it. "What in the hell is wrong with you?"_

_He didn't need an answer to that. Snake sat the gun on the rim of the tub and leaned his head back against the tile behind him._

_"I'm just getting worse, Hal."_

_"I'll say. This is the most selfish thing you've ever done."_

_"What?"_

_"So, you kill yourself. Great for you...your suffering is over but what about me? What in the hell am I supposed to do then, Snake? Maybe you have it all figured out and are ready to end this life but I don't yet. Maybe you don't need me but I need you still."_

_"For what, Hal? To keep you and Sunny up all night worrying about me when I'm trapped in one of my nightmares or to pick me up off the floor when my body can't even find the strength to do it alone? Do you __**really**__ need me around for that? I've served my purpose. This was long overdue."_

_"Served your purpose? You're not a kitchen appliance, Snake, you're a human being and my friend! Believe it or not, this is what friends do. Have you ever heard me complain about doing any of it? "_

_"You don't have to." Snake looked at him. "You look like shit, Hal, and I know it's because of me. I have no idea when you sleep since you're always hovering over me, not worrying about yourself. You're a goddamn idiot."_

_"You're probably right but...I can't let you leave like this. Maybe that actually makes me the selfish one now that I think about it...but I haven't even begun to try and imagine what my life would be like without you. I don't want to have to."_

_"You don't have much of a life left. I'm sucking it right out of you." Snake picked up the gun again his hands and examined it with a certain fascination that almost let him forget what it was. "I used to despise people who didn't know when their time was up, who walked around wasting the oxygen the people around them breathed. And now, I'm one of them. When you start to kill the very ones trying to save you, it's time to get out. You're just doing more harm than good. Here." He rested the butt of the gun on Hal's fingertips "I owe you this, Hal. Take your life back." _

_"Snake, what are you--"_

_"Don't be stupid. Kill me."_

_"What? No!"_

_"Do it, Emmerich!"_

_"Have you lost your damn mind?! __**This**__ is what kills me most, Snake! It's not the sleepless nights or making sure you eat or watching you suffer through your nightmares. It's listening to you talk like this! __**That**__ is what kills me! I can't believe you would even ask me to do something like this. You think that's what'll make me happy? You think that's what'll restore all this life I've supposedly lost? Blowing out the brains of my best friend?! What kind of person do you think I am?" Hal wiped his sleeve across his eyes and looked down at the gun for a long moment. "You know what? Maybe I should kill you, Snake. It's what you want and at least one of us will be happy, right? I mean, who gives a damn about what I want anyway?" _

_"Uncle Hal, no!"_

_Neither one of them had heard the door open and for a few seconds, Hal couldn't process Sunny's appearance in the doorway. Though he knew it was pointless, Hal tucked the gun out of her view._

_"Sunny! You're supposed to be in your room!"_

_"What are you doing, Uncle Hal?! Don't hurt Snake! Please..." _

_Hal slipped the gun into the space of floor between the tub and commode and went over to her._

_"Calm down, okay? Nobody's going to hurt Snake."_

_"You were going to kill him! I heard him ask you and said you were going to do it!"_

_"I was...I was angry at Snake for asking me, Sunny, but I wasn't actually going to. I swear I wasn't."_

_As if she had reminded herself of the real culprit, she looked past Hal to the body still sitting the bathtub. "Why did you ask him to kill you?! Answer me!" Snake froze as if she were holding an interrogation light over him demanding top secret information. She started over to him, her tiny fists wanting to beat the answer out of him and sense back into him all in the same blows, but Hal caught her midsection and embraced her tightly. _

_"I am so sorry, Sunny. I'm so, so sorry." The more he apologized, the more she seemed to sob but he couldn't stop himself from saying it. After a moment, he pulled her back to look at her and recognized his own churning emotions mirrored back at him in her eyes. "Sunny, go back to your room, okay? I'll be in there in a moment."_

_"Please don't..."_

_"I promise I'm not going to hurt Snake, okay? Please trust me."_

_Hal didn't allow his heart to break until Sunny was gone far behind every door she needed to be behind. Snake watched him give permission to everything that wanted release in a scream amount to nothing more than painful sobs. When Hal spotted the gun next to his foot, he leaned over and picked it up. He ran his hand along the barrel of it in an eerie composure that Snake had never known him to have around a gun much less holding one. _

_"Hal--"_

_He looked up._

_"Lock this thing away somewhere, Snake," he said, his voice trapped in the same calm. "I don't want to see it again and I don't want Sunny to ever find it either."_

_He nodded and received the weapon back into his possession. He lifted his weight out of the tub by his arms but some point, the action depleted the strength in them and he felt a sudden brace wrap around his waist to catch him before he could crash back down into the acrylic base of it._

_"I got you." Hal made sure Snake was steady on his feet before he took his last finger off the grip of the mercenary. "Are you okay?"_

_"Yeah."_

_"Good." he replied and looked at him. "If we ever have this conversation again, Snake, I promise I will not hesitate to shoot you next time."_

_Even though it felt inappropriate to both of them to do so and wouldn't fix a single thing, they laughed. There simply wasn't another emotion left either one of them could put in its place at the moment. _


	6. Chapter 6

"Where are we going, Mei Ling?"

"It's such a nice day, I thought you and I could just go for a drive."

Sunny kept the layer of suspicion in the look she gave to Mei Ling. "What's _really_ going on, here?"

"You sound like you don't trust me." Mei Ling was playful with her words but Sunny wasn't.

"Not right now, I don't. I don't like surprises."

"And what 8-year-old little girl doesn't like surprises?" When Sunny didn't answer, she looked over at her and saw that her gaze was newly glued to the green and brown passing splotches of nature's colors on the other side of the passenger window. She reached over and patted her knee. "Don't worry, sweetie. It's not really a surprise."

As the truck slowed and eventually made a turn into the large, open familiar area, Sunny shot a look at Mei Ling.

"What are you doing?" She asked as if she was watching Mei Ling attempt open heart surgery.

"We're stopping here."

"We can't stop here!"

"Why not?"

"Because...because I don't like this place."

"But you used to." The truck rumbled to a halt on shut off and Mei Ling took the keys out of the ignition. "Sunny, just give it a chance. I know this is yours and Hal's special place--"

"Was," she quickly corrected her. "It _was_ our special place. I just wanna go home."

"I promise we won't stay long. Ten minutes at the most. I saw this place in the picture you gave me of you and Hal and I really wanted to see it before I went back to LA."

"It's just a stupid place, Mei Ling, that I used to think was special. A really long time ago."

"Ten minutes and we'll go. I promise." Sunny sat with her arms crossed in front of her, pouting in every way her age suggested she could. As if something had bitten her bottom, she opened the door and suddenly leaped out of the truck and Mei Ling, smiling to herself, followed suit.

Aside from the occasional tree that sprouted from random places in the green flatness, there was nothing to be seen at first glance but as Mei Ling's eyes spent more time pour over the area, she noticed the small, man made lake in the distance that Snake had told her about. Sunny had found a bench and had parked stubbornly on it as she watched Mei Ling catch up.

"Let's sit by the lake."

"You said ten minutes." Sunny reminded her in a voice that said, 'no'.

Mei Ling sighed. "Fair enough." She sat down next to her and placed her hands in her lap. Even the color of the sky bared the blue she remembered seeing in Hal's looks at her. "You know, I still remember the day I met Hal. It was ten years ago right after him, Snake, and Meryl all escaped Shadow Moses. He was so young then, around twenty-six, I guess. He still looked like a little boy with his messy, permanent bed hair and those shy eyes."

Sunny kept her head to the ground, watching her legs swing like impatient pendulums over Mei Ling's words. "I knew," she continued, her smile slowly receding from across her face, "that he had one of the biggest hearts I'd ever seen...because when I heard and watched it break, it went off like an atomic bomb." Sunny looked up at Mei Ling now, and gave a subtle nudge in her mind for her to continue, "I don't think I've ever seen Hal more distraught than he was the day Emma died. I saw him grow up a lot after that but he lost something in his heart, something that contributed largely to how he saw the world. And then, you came, Sunny. You replaced—no, you _were_ that missing part in him." She turned to her and met her gaze. She nestled her face between her hands. Sunny's brown eyes broke the barricades of her aggression toward Hal. "And you were the perfect fit."

"He left me! He didn't think about anyone but himself!"

"Hal wasn't perfect, sweetie." Mei Ling looked up when she felt the wind kick up a considerable amount. Gray clouds were quietly riding in on them, blanketing the nice weather that had once existed over them. Sunny ripped her face out of Mei Ling's grip.

"He broke his promise to me. He told me we'd always be together!"

The first faint claps of thunder rolled out, punching holes in the clouds and letting them to trickle lightly on their heads. Mei Ling grabbed Sunny's hand with intentions of pulling her back to the dryness of the truck but she snatched away from her and removed herself from next to her.

"I hate him!"

Mei Ling seized the little girl by her shoulders, and jolted her between thoughts. "Don't you say that! Don't you ever say that! Hal loved you and I don't care how angry you are at him, he doesn't deserve that!"

When Mei Ling looked at her face, she couldn't tell where the sudden downpour of rain ended and Sunny's own sudden downpour began. She took her hands and wiped away everything as it mixed together and ran down on the pallet of her cheeks.

"Why didn't he want to be with me anymore?"

"Sunny," Mei Ling realized she was yelling over a full-fledged storm now, "we need to get back to the truck, okay? We're both going to get sick if we don't!" She didn't wait for Sunny to respond and broke into a run with the little girl secured by her hand behind her.

When they both had closed their doors to the raging winds and cutting drops of rain, Sunny brought her knees into her chest tucked herself away into them.

"I know that if Hal could do it all over again, that he wouldn't make the same mistake twice. If he could have seen your face, Sunny, the way I just saw it...he wouldn't have ever left you, not for a second. He'd be here and you'd both be happy and Snake wouldn't blame himself and maybe I could have told Hal to not let go because everyone would let go with him..." Mei Ling's words tumbled out right before her body fell into the steering wheel. "But I'm powerless. I can't change anything. And now, everything is a mess without you, Hal."

Mei Ling looked down when she felt Sunny's head land in her lap and her arms wrap around her waist.

"I never hated him. I just wanted him to come back to me. I couldn't even throw all the things that reminded me of him away. It's all in a box under my bed still. I miss him more than anything, Mei Ling."

Mei Ling recognized the tears overtaking Sunny's face and breathing. They were the tears that tried to escape the moment she realized Hal was gone from her life or during the funeral or any moment leading up to it. Though they were late, they were relevant to everything the three of them felt whenever Hal's missing presence played on all the most sensitive parts of them and stirred more powerfully than any tempered storm occurring outside the windows of the truck.


	7. My Complete

_My Complete_

_Hal didn't say anything when he walked into Sunny's room. He knew he didn't have to with her and he was thankful because he was sure there would be nothing but tears that would come out anyway. He slowly slid his body down into the spot across from hers on the bed and let out an almost painful sigh that Sunny understood perfectly. Both of them silently rushed the exchange of questions and concerns but it wasn't until Hal turned his glazed stare away from her in the stark realization of everything that had happened that she felt inspired to speak._

_"Are you okay, Uncle Hal?"_

_"I should be asking you that question, don't you think?"_

_"I'm okay."_

_"Well then so am I, angel."_

_"What about Snake?"_

_"He's in bed. Asleep finally. I'm going to keep an eye out on him tonight. Make sure he stays okay."_

_"What about you? When are you going to bed?"_

_"I'll be a tiny miracle if I get to sleep tonight. Everything is still kind of racing." _

_"Is Snake going to die?"_

_Hal had expected Sunny to ask that but it was that moment that he realized he hadn't been prepared for it. To think about it or to answer it aloud. He stalled to work out a wording in his head until Sunny's eyes wouldn't let him waste any more time doing so. _

_"As it looks right now, yes."_

_"I don't want him to die, Uncle Hal."_

_"I know. I don't want him to either...but, if it's his time then there's nothing we can do about it."_

_"I'm happy you didn't hurt Snake like he asked you to."_

_There was a sad heaviness to his sigh that Sunny caught. "He doesn't really want that. Snake's very angry and sad right now at being so sick and sometimes, when people get that sad, they don't want to live anymore. I really wish you wouldn't have heard any of that."_

_"Could you ever..."_

_"No, of course not! I couldn't hurt Snake even if I had to. I care about him a lot and, if you can help it, you don't hurt the people you care about." _

_"Uncle Hal...promise me you'll never die."_

_"I can't promise you that, Sunny. Just like you can't promise me that. That's something we don't have any control over. But, what I can promise is that I'll never leave you and you can promise me the same thing."_

_"Of course I will. I'll never leave you, Uncle Hal."_

_"You promise?" He dabbed the tip of her nose with his index finger and she giggled._

_"I promise."_

_He fell into another quiet moment as he looked at Sunny. To her, Hal's face had settled into a state of permanent exhaustion. His blue eyes rarely sparked when he smiled anymore, a quality Sunny missed the most as she looked back at him. They barely found the motivation to even smolder after the sights they were subjected to each day. Seeing the mercenary deteriorate and knowing he was dying was a rasping, cold wind that steadily blew at the flame inside of Hal that kept him going...and lent that shimmer to his eyes. He chose to bottle it up instead and poison his own happiness than let it contaminate the laughter and smiles that his angel still managed to have throughout everything she accidentally saw or heard. If he couldn't give her a normal home life or a real family, he wanted at least that for her._

_Hal laughed when Sunny started to walk her left hand along the side of his face. He let her maneuver over the frame of his glasses and travel to his forehead where he finally reached up and ended her hand's trek._

_"I hope they make hiking boots small enough to fit on these," he said._

_"I just wanted to see you smile, Uncle Hal. You looked sad again."_

_"No, I wasn't sad. I was just...thinking."_

_"Thinking about what?"_

_"That I should stop blinking."_

_"Stop blinking? Why?"_

_"Because, everytime I do, I lose a millisecond of time and I swear that sometimes when I open my eyes again, it's like you've grown without me even knowing it." He blinked. "See, there you go again! You're even older than I remember you from a few seconds ago."_

_"Why don't I feel older then?"_

_"It's because only I know it's happening. It's one of those magical grown-up powers."_

_He blinked again._

_"How old am I now?" she asked._

_He gasped, "I bet you're at least 9 or 10 right now! " _

_She laughed. "No I'm not!"_

_"Yes you are. You keep this up and you'll be in college by Thursday. It's settled, I have to stop blinking."_

_Hal stared straight ahead with all the seriousness of a guard outside of Buckingham Palace. Sunny waved her hand in front of his face a few times and soon resorted to blowing a light puff of air into his face that finally broke his gaze._

_"Oh no," he cried, "You just got even older. Now you're eleven!"_

_Sunny slid off his glasses and put her hand over his eyes and counted to ten before she removed it again. "How old am I now, Uncle Hal?"_

_"Oh, Sunny. I missed so many years. You look about fifteen now. I bet you have a boyfriend and probably think you're too cool to talk to me in public anymore."_

_"That's not true. We'll always be best friends."_

_"You say that now but one day, it'll happen. You'll have so many friends and things to do that you won't even think about me."_

_"That'll never happen. I promised to never leave you, remember?"_

_Hal felt himself losing the fun of the moment but forced himself to hold on to it and blinked his eyes again. "Sunny! You're like, eighteen now!" He tightly covered his eyes with both his hands. "Okay, I need you to be my little girl again. I liked you at seven! I need to go backwards!"_

_"I have to cover your eyes, Uncle Hal." she instructed him of the new official rule, "That's the only way I'll be seven again." She left her hand over his face for another ten seconds and slowly unveiled it. Hal smiled immediately._

_"There you are, angel. I was beginning to think I had lost you." Hal checked his watch when he saw Sunny try to stifle a yawn from him. "Well, I think that's enough time travel for tonight. It's been a really long day that I'm sure we could both stand to forget about. You should get some sleep."_

_"But, I'm not tired yet."_

_"Trust me, once you stop age jumping, you'll realize how tired you are."_

_She accepted a kiss goodnight on her cheek and grabbed his arm before as he began to sit up. "I want to be one more age before you leave."_

_He sighed. "Okay, one more age but then it's bed time, okay?"_

_She twisted her mouth to the side in thought for a moment. "Hmm...twenty-five!"_

_"Twenty-five? I don't think I want to see you at twenty-five yet, Sunny. Besides, we could mess up the very delicate fabrics of the spacetime continuum if we continue to do this."_

_"Please, Uncle Hal."_

_"Okay, okay." Hal readjusted himself on the pillow across from her and slipped his glasses off to let Sunny place her hand across his eyes._

_"This time," she said, making sure she was covering as much area as her hand allowed her to, "I have to cover your eyes for __**twenty**__ seconds."_

_"Well, I guess that makes sense. Okay, I'm ready." _

_He stayed perfectly still as she gave a slow, careful count to twenty. When she had said the final number aloud, she lifted her hand up like a visor over his eyes. _

_"You can open your eyes now. Uncle Hal?" She caught herself before she reached out to shake him to attention and instead redirected her hands to a throw folded at the end of her bed. Hal shifted slightly in the added covering to his body but remained asleep under her watch. His fingers easily released the hold they had on his glasses and she slowly pulled them out from under them and to the safety of her night stand. _

_"Goodnight, Uncle Hal." She planted a gentle kiss on his forehead, a spot she had many impressions from him on her own face. "And by the way, I think Snake needs you too."_

_Hal didn't respond._

_He was finally dreaming. _


	8. Chapter 8

"Do you really have to go back to Los Angeles in a few days, Mei Ling?"

Even though Sunny was doing her best to pout, Mei Ling had to let out a small laugh.

"I'm afraid so. I'm sure you and Snake are sick are having me around anyway, eh?"

"No we're not! Can't you stay a little while longer?"

She sat next to Sunny on her bed and put an arm around her, "I have to get back home now but...I did come in your room to talk to you about something. How would you feel about coming back to Los Angeles with me?"

Sunny's eyes showed a deep consideration of the offer but something changed the look to one of concern.

"What about Snake? Will he be coming with us?"

She shook her head and smoothed over Sunny's hair with a few strokes of her hand that were as sad as her expression had become. "No. I'm afraid not."

"Why not?"

"Because, sweetie, Snake has gotten very sick in the past few weeks and it looks like he doesn't have very long left. He says he needs some time to himself, to think about things like his life." Mei Ling watched the little girl's face darken. "He said that you're always the one to pull him out of the depths of hell and that he can't let you to do that. Not this time. So, he asked me to take you back to LA with me."

"But I won't get to say goodbye..."

"No, that's not true. We'll come back and visit him so that both of us can say goodbye, okay?"

"Okay."

Mei Ling instinctively wrapped Sunny up in her arms like a blanket. "I'm so sorry, honey. I know we both care about Snake a lot and I hate that he's being so stubborn about this. I wish he'd listen for once in his life and let us do to something to help him."

"I don't want to leave him alone in this house."

Mei Ling sighed. "I know. I thought about that too. But, you know Snake. Once he says something, there's no changing his mind." Sunny sank herself deeper into the embrace that surrounded her at further thought of Snake's choice to isolate himself from the world and wait for his death, something she knew Hal would have never allowed. In the small silence between them, Mei Ling landed a soft kiss on the top of her head. "I know it's hard to have to lose two people who mean so much to you and I won't even pretend to know what that feels like...but, I promise I won't let you go through this alone."

Sunny looked up at her. "Where will Snake go?"

"What do you mean, sweetie?"

"When he dies. Where will he go?"

"Well, Snake is going to go somewhere where he'll never be stared at or pointed at again. Somewhere where he can finally rest and find happiness. That's where good people like him go."

"Do you think he'll see Uncle Hal again?"

She smiled at the thought herself and nodded. "Yeah, I think they'll find each other. And I think Hal is going to be a little sad but also very happy to see him."

"So, maybe Snake will get a happy ending after all," her eyes illuminated with the new found comfort and requested another assuring sentiment from warm, almond eyes looking down at her. "Do you think so, Mei Ling?"

"You know what? I do think so. I think he'll have whatever ending his angel wants for him."


	9. Deleted Scene

_This scene was to go immediately after Sunny and Mei Ling arrive back from the Savanna. _

_I must admit, I knew pretty early into writing this scene—like around the part of Snake's aimless wandering—that I wasn't going to use it. But since the only thing really left to write in "Where" was the end and I still didn't quite have it together yet, I kept on writing it anyway for fun. I guess in a way, this is a little nod to my hero and major creative inspiration, David Hayter, who I think has always had a silent wish for a Mei Ling/Snake hook up._

* * *

Mei Ling opened the door to an unusually quiet house but ignored it as she went straight to the hall closet and threw the little body that had walked in behind her a towel.

"Remember, change out of those clothes, kiddo, so you don't get sick."

Sunny smiled and nodded as she ran the towel through her hair. Mei Ling took one out for herself, and when she noticed Sunny had dripped a path back to her room, she reconnected to the silence of the house and begun to journey through it. As she walked through the dining room and kitchen, she couldn't get in her mind what she was looking for or why she was looking for it. Silence wasn't an unusual setting in the house but there was a potentness to it that heightened a fear inside her that told her it was out of place this time.

"Snake?" she finally said to cut through it, to hear something that wasn't the sound of her own breathing deepening in a slight panic. She quickened her pace and backtracked to the hallway, flinging open the bathroom door.

Nothing.

"Snake!" She found herself jogging now, stopping a few feet from Sunny's door at Snake's bedroom.

Nothing.

She abandoned the towel on the floor as she rushed to the side door. She twisted the doorknob to open it but realized it wasn't even closed to begin with, just ajarred. Something definitely wasn't right.

The bad storm had passed over and the sun was beginning to reappear and make the most of its last few moments in the sky for the day. Mei Ling broke into a run behind the tall figure walking aimlessly into the open nothingness of the dirt road ahead of it. She knew it was Snake and she knew that he simply wasn't going for a leisurely stroll. It was an aimless wandering in his steps and levels of lostness that hadn't been recognized by even him yet. She helped herself come to a stop when she grabbed Snake's arm. The touch slightly startled him but not enough to discontinue his pace.

"Snake…where are you going?"

"You don't hear it?"

"Hear what?"

He put his index finger to his mouth and waited a few seconds. She could tell he had heard what he wanted to when he looked back at her. "That. You don't hear it? He's calling me, Mei Ling. He needs my help. They have him."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa…Snake, I don't hear anything. What are you talking about? Who has who?"

"Hal." He said, "The Resistance. They have him. I'm not going to let him down this time. He needs me."

Mei Ling positioned her body in front of his and continued to move with him backwardly.

"Snake, listen to me. You're not hearing Hal."

"I know what I heard, Mei Ling. I heard him call my name. He needs my help." Snake's determination felt challenged by his own memories of his previous failure and for a moment, Mei Ling almost wished to crawl into his hallucination with him and reclaim the battle they had lost. But she fought the urge and grabbed his arms to ready herself to fight for him too and pull him out of his dream.

"Snake--"

"I know what I heard!" He snapped at her and wrung himself free of the attempted rescue. "If you don't want to help me, then go back home. I'll find him myself. I don't have a problem with that."

"Listen to me! The Resistance is dead and Hal is…Hal is gone, Snake." Her words equaled a ton of bricks crashing down as Snake finally slowed to a stop allowing Mei Ling to put the back of her hand over his face and cheek. "Oh no. You poor thing. You feel like an oven, Snake." His face dropped as his delusion began to unravel and the harsh lights of reality broke through again. Before he knew it, he was turned around and headed back in the direction of the house, Mei Ling guiding him by the arm.

They didn't exchange words on the walk back and she didn't let loose of him until she had placed him in his bed.

"You're on bed rest until your fever comes down, Snake." She placed a cool, wet cloth on his forehead. "I mean it. You get up for anything and I'll let you deal with Sunny."

"You think I'm crazy."

She took a seat next to him and shook her head thoughtfully. "No, I don't think you're crazy, Snake. I think you miss Hal just like all of us."

"I heard his voice. It sounded so real…"

"It's the fever playing around with your senses. You'll be fine once it breaks."

The news almost seemed to disappoint him. "For a moment, I got to pretend Hal was alive again and that I could start over from the moment we rescued him. I would have done things different, Mei Ling. I would have paid attention more and saw what was happening to him. I would have been his friend instead of the person who gave up on him."

"There's no more time for blame, Snake. Don't waste any more of the time you have left regretting the things you can't change."

"How long do you think I have?" He asked her, a certain curiosity reading in his tone.

"That's not fair, Snake. Don't make me answer that. I don't want to think about it."

"Mei Ling, I need you to do something for me. Please, take Sunny back to Los Angeles with you."

She judged the seriousness of the request for a moment with confusion in her stare. "But, I'm not supposed to come back for her for another few months..."

"I changed my mind. I don't want her here to watch. She's watched me go through this once and in a way, she practically watched Hal die right in front of her. She doesn't need this."

"Snake, but, you need someone here to help you. Just for a little while longer."

"I can die on my own, Mei Ling. I don't need anyone's help for that."

She turned her head away from him and dropped into a quietness that made Snake wonder if she'd ever speak again. He made a few delicate pulls at her body to turn back to him and one of the tugs landed Mei Ling in his arms, her face and tears disappearing into his chest.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I guess I could have said that a little nicer than what I did."

She found it in her to laugh a little before lifting her head to look at him. "Well, it's not like you're known for your verbal tact. I just wish...I wish none of this was really happening. I wish I could close my eyes and make everything a movie scene. Someone would yell 'cut' and Hal would come out and tell everyone what a good job they did acting sad and distraught over his death in the last take. And you...you wouldn't be sick, Snake. It would all just be make-up. We'd all get to go home and know that everything was just a part of an act."

"Sometimes, fantasy can hurt us more than reality does, Mei Ling. It's probably not good to think like that."

"Maybe not but I think I'll take my chances since reality sure hasn't done much for me lately."

Snake reached out and began to explore the the perfect texture and curves of her face with his hand. She closed her eyes and let him do so until his thumb began to trace an outline of her lips. She grabbed his hand and gently pulled it from her face. "Don't do that, Snake." He obeyed that request but couldn't resist the urge in himself to lean down and give her a few tender teases of his lips on hers. When he stopped to look at her for some kind of reaction—not caring if it was good or bad—she pulled herself to him and returned the waves of pressurized electricity he had sent through her. For that moment, with her body and self control tangled madly with his, she didn't think about why it was happening or if it was happening for good or fair reason. She simply no longer cared. She was tired of thinking too much about every little abnormal thing she felt when she looked at him or touched him and it all released into the light tugs of request he made to rid the presence of her shirt and the initiative she took of ridding him of his lower half covering as well.

The sound of a door's attempt to quietly close removed their hands from their respective positions on each other and snapped apart their lips. Mei Ling and Snake both gave each other the same look but only she got up to reattached loss clothing and chase down the tiny figure that was speed walking down the hallway back to her room.

Mei Ling opened the cracked door without knocking and found Sunny overly indulged in a randomly selected book. She looked up like she was surprised to see Mei Ling as she walked in.

"Sunny, I don't know how much of that you saw but, uh...how much of that _did_ you see?"

"Don't know what you're talking about. I was here the whole time. Reading my book."

"Sunny...it's okay. I know you saw Snake and I a moment ago." She lowered the book along with the facade and allowed Mei Ling to sit next to her on the bed. "So, how much did you see?" she repeated a little nervously.

"All I saw was you two kissing." Sunny unexpectedly smiled just as Mei Ling was about to work up an explanation and apology. "Does this mean you _like_ Snake?"

She froze in the little girl's implied approval if her answer happened to be 'yes'. "Well, honey, it's a little more complicated than that. I think."

"When you kiss somebody like that, that means you like them, right?"

"Uh, well, kind of. Or, it could mean that you're trying to figure out if you like someone or not." Mei Ling's statements made only as much sense as her actions had in her head and she could clearly see she was starting to confuse Sunny now too.

"So, you _don't_ like Snake like that?"

"No, I do like Snake, I just..." She shrugged the rest of the statement out and let her shoulders drop heavily, "Actually, Sunny...I don't know what I feel for Snake anymore."

"Maybe you should kiss him again and find out!"

"Sunny!" Mei Ling joined the girl in a laugh.

"Well, I think you both really like each other and if you make each other happy, it shouldn't be so confusing."

"You know what? You're absolutely right, kiddo. But sometimes adults have a way of making even the simplest stuff complicated."

"I know." She replied, "Uncle Hal used to tell me that all the time and that I shouldn't ever want to be an adult."

"And he was right. You have to get a job to pay bills and have a mean boss. I don't see why anyone ever wants to get older. You should stay 8 years old forever."

"What about boys?"

"And boys, they're the worst! They never know what they really want and when they do tell you, it's usually nothing you want to give them."

"Nothing you want to give them? Like what?"

Mei Ling laughed and ruffled her hand through Sunny's hair. "Hmm...ask me that question again in 2 years."


End file.
